


sinner, sinner

by qqueenofhades



Category: Lucifer (TV)
Genre: Deckerstar - Freeform, F/M, Plot What Plot, Sex Pollen, Smut, je ne regrette rien
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2016-08-27
Updated: 2016-08-27
Packaged: 2018-08-11 09:12:32
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 5,692
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/7885207
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/qqueenofhades/pseuds/qqueenofhades
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>In which Chloe is jealous, Lucifer is overconfident, a strange red haze is doing odd things to everyone, and temptation is decidedly not avoided in the least, repeatedly. (Sex pollen/smut. For reasons.)</p>
            </blockquote>





	sinner, sinner

The first thing Chloe notices, as she advances into the dim penthouse with gun in one hand and flashlight in the other, just waiting for something to jump out at her from behind the glass rack, is the strange red haze in the air. She assumes it must be one of Lucifer's mood lights – maybe he's just trying out new design options, though this place always feels more like an exclusive VIP lounge to her than one where anyone actually lives. That's probably the point. He orbits through this gilded birdcage, but he doesn't really stay. Doesn't settle. Has his personal bar, his piano, his bed with its black silk sheets, the windows that look over downtown Los Angeles for miles. A sea of earthbound stars, splendid and glittering. Just as beautiful and remote and soulless as he is.

Chloe doesn't see any immediate source for the red glow, which is strange, but not any more than the other things that tend to happen around him. She flicks her flashlight from corner to corner. "Hello?" she shouts. "LAPD! Anyone here, come out where I can see you!"

Still nobody. She reaches for the light switch and hits it, hoping to bring up the usual blue lights – which appear, somewhat belatedly, but still does not disperse the haze. They're both convinced they saw someone come up here – someone in the crowd at Lux, scampering up the stairs like a fleet dark shadow, and with (supposedly, at any rate) the Mother of Demons on the loose, both of them are a little on edge. Well, Lucifer more than a little. She can see it in his eyes, and the way he's downright skittish, the one thing Mr. "Bulletproof Abs, _Literally_ " Morningstar never is. His method of dealing with it has been to be even more glib and annoying than usual, as they've crisscrossed L.A. in search of leads for a series of strange disappearances. They've also encountered a number of beautiful, mysterious women whom Lucifer has been more than happy to tell her that he slept with, and Chloe's found herself reacting to them a bit, well, strangely. She should be interrogating them coolly and professionally, seeing if they know anything, taking statements, but instead she's being even shorter than formal police protocol would necessitate. Finding excuses to introduce herself as Lucifer's partner _(business partner,_ her head corrects her, but the words never quite make it out of her mouth). Putting a hand on his arm, positioning herself next to him, between him and them. If she started suspecting everyone he's done the nasty with, she'd be at loggerheads with half of Los Angeles, and it's ridiculous anyway. But nonetheless, no matter how hard she tries to shove it down and switch it off, to get on with what's in front of them, some small part of her is very well aware of the truth.

Chloe is really fucking jealous.

Now, as she looks from side to side but still doesn't see anyone or anything moving in the shadows of the apartment, she's on the verge of deciding it was just a mistake. She'll put the badge and the gun and the flashlight away and go back downstairs to Lux, tell Lucifer to check his wiring. (He'll say his wiring is fine, would she like to see?) Or maybe he won't. He'll have another beautiful anorexic Slovenian supermodel on his arm (he always has one of those these days) and won't even spare it a thought. Or spare _her_ a thought, thank her for heading up here to check, gratis. Bring the supermodel up here instead. Tumble her into the black sheets, just like however many others. Chloe will go home, as usual, and try not to think about it.

Or maybe – here's a thought? – she won't.

(The red light is, oddly, stronger. Pulsating, almost. A strong, deep scarlet, not the light rose-pink hue of it when she walked in. Attaching itself to her, feeding. She thinks of what Lucifer does to people – which, no matter the gimmick, really does work. Drawing out their desires, pushing them past their barriers and lies and evasions into raw and utter honesty, even if it incriminates them.)

It's coiling around her, closer and closer. She breathes it in automatically, not wondering until too late if she shouldn't, but if it was poison, she should be dead already. And it tastes _good_ , it tastes like red wine, it tastes bitter and musky and sweet and fragrant all at once, exploding in her mouth, and oddly enough, she can smell it as well. Rich and deep as fine cologne, burning like straight whiskey, until she feels almost as if she's floating, as if her feet aren't touching the ground, and at the same time, she has never been clearer-headed. Never known more exactly what she wants, and how she is going to go about getting it. And suddenly, it occurs to her that perhaps he's been trying to do exactly what he's done. Because, of course, he has no idea how to do it maturely or wisely or gently, because his idea of showing real interest is to make her cross paths with every literally godforsaken one of his one-night stands, until she's good and lathered and ready to do just about –

When the elevator door dings a minute later, as Lucifer steps out and says, "Detective, really, how long can it possibly take to – " he instead stops short, absolutely dead in his tracks, and for a man who supposedly quite literally fell out of heaven, this must be second on the list of shocks in his very, very long life. A close one.

Chloe drops her shirt, unclasps her bra, kicks off her jeans, loosens her hair from its ponytail, turns around, and smiles at him like a siren.

If Lucifer had to breathe to live, he would already be a goner.

They stare at each other for a very, very long moment. Lucifer blinks, as if attempting to reset his faulty visual input. Then he blinks again. Then he raises a hand to his face, then drops it. "Detective," he says after a moment. "You seem to have accidentally misplaced your clothing. Innocent mistake, could happen to anyone."

"Don't be stupid." Chloe saunters toward him, bare feet making soft indents in the lush carpet. "I thought this was the sort of thing you liked for an opening move."

Lucifer opens and shuts his mouth, looking completely and utterly flummoxed. Both of them are well aware of the _last_ time this happened, when he dropped trou in front of her without a scrap of shame, and she saw the scars on his back. This time, however, he's the one that can't possibly summon up a coherent response, while she's the one smirking at him like the fox in the henhouse. He looks around wildly as if in search of a hidden camera, and as she comes to a halt directly in front of him, the air almost vibrating with the force of the two of them in such close proximity, he puts up a feeble hand. "I – I _really_ don't think this – "

"And here I thought – " Chloe stands on her tiptoes, leaning in toward him, even as his dark head is drawn irresistibly to hers, their lips almost grazing, but not quite – "you were the one who was into temptation."

"Point, my dear, but this is not what I was – " Lucifer glances up at the red light, which is drawn after Chloe as if in a buzzing swarm of bees, a veil and a mantle glowing around her lithe naked body, and something crosses his face in a flash. It's starting to transfer from her to him, running like glowing red-gold beads across the floor to his feet and climbing up his impeccably tailored suit leg. He shakes it vigorously with a look of horror, trying to get it off, the same way he does whenever Trixie attempts to hug him. This only makes it cling harder, and run faster. The lights have somehow contrived to go out, and the two of them, glowing like the sun – like the morning star – are the only sources of light in the dark tower.

Chloe reaches up, twirling the threads around her fingers with an enchanted grin. She doesn't say a word about fancy pyrotechnics, or asking him how he's doing it, which is enough to clue Lucifer in (as if he was in any doubt) that she's not herself right now – or rather, she is. Chloe without her walls and her defenses and her hard-edged exterior, Chloe without her denial. Good thing he's immortal and indestructible and not prone to the mind-altering properties of this particular effect, and thus can be the bigger man in the situation, gently shut her down and get her back to herself, and enjoy weeks of teasing her about how she tried once more to seduce him. He's going to use it to prime blackmail effect, see if he doesn't, and –

The glow is reaching his hands, his arms, threading inward across his shoulders, toward his chest, over his heart. It isn't supposed to be doing that. Really isn't supposed to be doing that.

Lucifer redoubles his _get-it-off_ jig, which doesn't get it off.

Something's happening to him as well. He's losing any slender incentive he had to fight this, even as he remembers in horror what happens to certain of his splendid qualities when Chloe is around – namingly, his resilience. She makes him bleed – is she about to render him susceptible to one of these as well? Oh no, this is bad, this is _very_ bad, this is very, _very –_

He blinks. He blinks again. He doesn't feel much different, because he's wonderful, but… he does, somehow. Like something has switched off in him as well, as he reaches for one of his usual dashingly clever quips and says, for the first time in however many millennia, "Uh…"

(He's _never_ going to live this down.)

Chloe's grin turns appropriately devilish. She reaches out and walks her fingers across his chest, where it's visible through the unbuttoned top section of his shirt. He tenses almost to stone at her touch, as if he might still remember it if he lived another thousand years and a thousand more. Turns away, determinedly not meeting her eyes, until she says, "Lucifer."

It snaps his head back toward her like a whip, and he can feel it to the back of his spine (and other places) when their gazes lock. His hand comes up with a will of its own, cupping the back of her head beneath the silken fall of her hair, and the next moment he crushes his mouth to hers, hard enough that it knocks her off balance and she has to wrap her arms around his neck to keep from falling. They take a few stumbling steps as he keeps on devouring her, her lips opening and his tongue prodding through, tasting and exploring, light and darting. She utters a hitching breath and lifts her leg, as he catches her knee with a hand and hikes it alongside his hip, kissing her all the way backwards to the wall, as it turns wet and harder and biting, back and forth, her fingers fisting in the dark hair at the nape of his neck. She's a puller, apparently, but he doesn't mind, he really _doesn't_ bloody mind, he hopes she's a biter and a scratcher too. Hellfire, it tastes good, it tastes like fire and gold and light, it feels like the first time he opened his eyes on the first day of the first year of the first eternity, long before. He only stops when he's belatedly aware that she probably needs to breathe. Even he is completely wrecked and heaving.

Chloe is gasping and gulping, their sweaty foreheads brushing, his mouth still open to browse against her nose, the hollow of her cheek where it curves to the generous bow of her bruised lips, which he nips lightly. He presses another into the indent of her chin, grinning into it, carding his long fingers through her loosened hair. "Why, Detective Decker," he purrs. "I'm not at all sure a buttoned-up police professional has any business kissing like that."

"I investigate dead people, I'm not one myself," Chloe pants. Breath or no breath, she doesn't seem interested in waiting for round two, and she drags his mouth back to hers again, as he lifts her with no effort at all and her legs come up to link around his waist. He hoists her, arms around her back, as her hands cup and caress his head, and they go for it even more thoroughly this time, leaving no inch of the other's mouth untasted or unchallenged. When they finally break apart, even less of a distance this time, Chloe starts fumbling at his shirt, which isn't nearly undone enough for her taste. She almost rips it getting off – "Careful, you uncultured philistine, it's Armani!" Lucifer squeals, but she ignores him – and runs both hands over the smooth, strong planes of his chest and shoulders. In the crimson glow, he looks absolutely heart-stopping.

His eyelashes flutter, half-shut, dark shadows against the paler mask of his face, as his tongue darts out to touch his lips and it is clearly taking every inch of his self control (what a time for him to discover he has any of this particular virtue, it's annoying) not to pick her up, throw her on the bed, and fuck her to within an inch of her life on the spot. But as that seems to be rather exactly what she wants him to do, she pouts. Considers, then flicks his nipple lightly with thumb and finger, as it stiffens at once to her touch. Leans down, and takes it in her mouth.

Lucifer actually whines (well, he whines a lot, but this is different). He grabs at her, but she twists away, continuing to bite and lick and tease. Lets it go and kisses the graceful indent of his breastbone, the tender inlet of his solar plexus, then moves up to muse at his collarbone instead. Oh God (not God, definitely not) he tastes good. Her arms wrap around his neck again, his hands very low on the small of her back, moving to cup her ass, lifting her against him. He's shirtless, but he's still wearing his trousers, and as they grind against each other, Chloe notes dimly that his chest, impressive as it might be, is nonetheless the least hard part of him. Seems uncomfortable. It would be charitable to help him out.

She reaches for his belt, but Lucifer almost slaps her hands away in his haste to do it himself, unbuckling and unzipping and displaying no care at all for the doubtless equally expensive other half of his suit. He's wearing some fussy little black European-style underwear, and she's the one to smack him this time as he reaches for them. She's doing that herself, thanks.

His breath almost hisses out of him as she tugs them off, and they face each other for the first time in nothing more or less than their skins. She feels no impulse to pull back, to try to cover herself; indeed, she wants him to look. Circles him, doing the same – is it possible to feel like you're drowning, like you can't possibly get enough air, but through your eyes instead? That's what it's like, to look back. He's tall and lean and trim as a flagpole, not an extra inch on him, narrow hips and long legs, the trail of fine dark hair leading down his belly to the juncture of his thighs. As promised, he manscapes. She steps forward, closer, cupping him in her hand, stroking her thumb down the length of him and circling the tip. He is smooth and cool as a carven statue, in bronze and marble and onyx. For once, for more than a passing moment of weakness, she actually believes him. That he's not some strange role-playing criminal conman with a blank slate of a past and a fondness for sex and drugs and high living and inexplicable hypnosis, but that he is, in fact, a fallen angel. Something not mortal, not usual, not common. Barely even real.

Lucifer growls low in his throat, thrusting against her fingers, as she toys him briefly, almost tempted to make a crack about how she literally has his balls in a vise and he'd better behave himself for once, but distracted as he pounces on her in a kiss again. Then when she has to let go to get a better grip on his shoulders, he shifts them, fast as a snake, and licks the pad of his thumb, tracing a glistening trail from collarbone to breast, then with another lick, to navel, and then lower. He slides his thumb down, his eyes never leaving hers, and splits her like a ripe peach, her slickness wet against his fingers, as he nips her lip, smirks at her with an expression that is so very, very him, and glides one knuckle against her, but not into her.

Chloe gasps, pressing into him, trying to get him further, but he resists, smirk widening, as he enjoys working her into a state of abject, trembling, swearing frustration. He holds her at arm's length with one hand as he surveys her up and down, other hand still between her legs. Then all at once, he pushes one finger in, as she clutches involuntarily and shudders. _Jesus_ comes to her lips by habit, but she doesn't say it out loud. Instead she whispers, more fittingly than she ever has in her life, "Oh, _hell."_

"See," Lucifer breathes, half mockingly and half reverently, sliding his finger inside her up to the fork of his hand, thumb playing over her clit in light, teasing flicks, then slower, sweeter, until her legs are turning to jelly. "She can be taught."

"Unh." Chloe reaches for him, hands splaying on his shoulders, pulling herself closer, spreading her legs, hips arching. He slides his finger out of her, then sucks on it with the expression of a connoisseur at a wine tasting, and a constrained shudder passes through him from head to heel. Then he licks two fingers, and pushes into her harder, rasping his knuckles against her inner walls, widening her, moving his hand in careful, elegant strokes. He cups her breast with his other hand, thumbing the nipple, framing her rib with the span of his palm, rubbing and readying her until she's almost seeing double. This is bloody delicious, more than delicious, but it's still just teasing and frisking and playing, and it is not enough. She tugs at him, trying to shift him in the direction of the bed.

He doesn't budge an inch. It's like trying to move Mount Olympus. "What do you want?" he whispers against her hair. "Ask me for what you want, darling."

"You know what I want." Chloe bumps her hips against his, but he still doesn't move. Aware that this is like asking the moon to turn blue, the Earth to orbit backwards, the I-10 traffic to move, she says, "Lucifer, don't be an ass."

"Hmm? What was that?" He reaches around to grab hers, as she squeaks. "Still can't hear you. Are you sure you're still speaking English?"

"What happened to speaking in tongues?" she growls. "Aren't you supposed to do those?"

He jut keeps smirking. Pulls her close, as she turns her mouth up to be kissed, and doesn't. Says again, "Ask me for what you want."

Right. The favors. The deals. Temptation. Desire. His thing. She wonders dimly how many of the Seven Deadly Sins she still has to commit before the night is over. Gluttony seems off the table, unless booze counts. Unless he does.

She says, "Fuck me."

"Bit louder. Old man. Hard of hearing, you know."

She slaps him. Not very hard, just hard enough, because she's well aware he likes that sort of thing, and indeed, he catches her hand, turning his head to press a burning kiss into her palm. Holds it there, arm around her waist, as she moves her mouth against his ear, bites the lobe, and whispers directly into it, "Fuck me, Lucifer."

"What's the magic word?"

"Oh, you bastard." She groans. She is wetter than a spring rainstorm, her heart is pounding out of her chest, her skin is fragile as blown glass, and she can't take much more of this. _"Please?"_

"I suppose that will do." With another of those too-fast-to-see motions, he swoops her up and practically flies the last few feet to the bed, as she lands with a thump on the covers and he poises himself above her, his shadow seeming, for half a moment, to have wings that brush the walls, that burn in shadow and starlight among the endless windows. She reaches up, curling her hands around his shoulder blades, until her fingers find the roughness of the scars. She doesn't know what actually happened – maybe he was in foster care, maybe someone did something horrible to him, burned him, gave him this entire delusion of being the Devil Incarnate – but she doesn't care. He crouches above her on all fours, eyes glowing like a bonfire. She feels as if he's seeing past her skin and flesh and even her bones, into something that can only be called the deepest and most secret and shivering part of her soul.

"Come on," she whispers, searching and starving in the darkness. "Come on, I need you."

Lucifer shifts his weight, the tip of him just brushing her, as she moves her hands to his hips and positions him. Her fingers sink into his flesh like clay, until she thinks of some half-remembered verse from one of the newfangled churches her mom sometimes tried out, hungry for purpose and meaning in her life but not willing to give anything up. _God fashioned Adam out of clay, and breathed life into him, and made the woman from his rib._ She doesn't believe in that version of things. She's an atheist. She never has.

It doesn't matter now. Doesn't matter. She's making him, and breathing life into him, and very well, perhaps he _is_ the Devil. She wonders then, in that unhinged moment, if she is becoming God.

Chloe clutches at him, pulling him against her, hard and cool and smooth, and arches her hips, as he slides a hand behind the small of her back. She reaches down with her other hand and gets hold of him, guiding him. _Close your eyes and count to ten._ With a soft hiss of breath, something barely uttered on his part, he edges just barely inside.

"Don't stop," she whispers, low in her throat, grasping hold of him and riding his cock into her inch by inch, filling and stretching her with a deep, sweet burn. "Don't stop."

Lucifer is bracing most of his weight on his elbows, but she can feel his arms trembling. Not with the strain; she's seen him hold people up with one hand, throw them through plate-glass windows with the flick of a wrist, other strange and uncanny feats that are more arousing than she'd like to admit. She wonders muzzily if she's weakening him somehow, if with every bit further they join, the more mortal he becomes, but she's never had an impact on his physical strength before. Perhaps it's not that, but something different. Perhaps even he, veteran lothario, no-woman-left-unbedded King of Sex and Sass, cannot quite stand it.

Both of them hiss as he comes to rest fully inside her, as she can feel herself beating slowly and steadily around him like a heart, and she grips him so hard by the shoulders that her fingernails leave marks. He growls again, knees sliding wider on either side of her, their noses brushing and their eyes meeting, as they both move to kiss each other at the same time and nearly end up banging heads instead. She scoots almost into a sitting position, keeping him inside her, and then abruptly changes her mind. Flips him flat on his back, straddles him, and begins to ride.

Lucifer takes hold of her hips as she flattens her hands on his chest, bracing herself, watching him slide in and out of her, as he reaches up to thumb her again, short and sharp and rough until she's seeing stars. Her head tilts back, mouth opening, as a gasp catches wet in her throat and they rock and thump on the bed, their enjoined bodies making soft slick sounds. He lets her think this is going entirely as she expects, for just long enough, and then he makes his move. He's a possessive sort of guy by nature and he very much wants to be in control, wants to give her the wish she whispered in his ear – must have killed him to have held off even this long, hope it wasn't bad for his health – and he rises underneath her like a bolt of lightning. She doesn't even know exactly what happens in the next few blinded, stuttering moments until they have once more switched places, she's the one on her back, and he fucks her like the world is ending.

Chloe sucks for air that has been physically driven from her body, until there's no space left in her, no inch, no sinew, no atom that isn't meshed with his, as his hands slide up her arms and catch hold of her wrists, pulling them over her head. He bends her like a bow into him – he's definitely taking care of the arrow – twisting and straining and testing them, her knees pulling up, her ankles locking behind his bucking hips, her nails clawing into his rock-hard shoulders, their mouths one, stealing breath. She is undone. She keens. "Oh hell," she gasps again. "Oh hell, Luci – Lucifer – yes. Oh, yes. Fuck. Yes."

He ghosts a hot breath over her breast, biting at the nipple, circling it with his tongue, as they roll over and over, entangled in the sheets, until they're half over the edge and she wonders madly if she gets to fall too, fall forever. She has an odd notion that the floor has vanished, that the room and the walls have as well, that she is balanced on a star plunging toward a distant mortal earth and that while she might explode and die, she will damn well burn across the heavens in an incandescent blaze of glory until she does. He thrusts into her almost viciously, but his arms around her keep her anchored, the weight and heaviness of his body and hers together. He knows what it's like to fall. He is not going to let her.

After another bedazzled moment they end up back in the bed, and his motions are wild, ragged, rising, rising, his eyes almost opaque, as if he cannot control himself in any sort of way or measure. She doesn't care, she gives as good as she gets, her hands clasping over the scars on his back until she swears she feels them nearly singe her palms with heat. His muscles bunch and twist and keep driving harder, harder, until she feels every stitch of her about to fly apart at the seams. She bites at him, throws her head back, swears, claws, sobs, and loses it entirely.

She's never felt anything like this. She's not even if she _is_ feeling, if she has a distinct body to take responsibility for it. He's still pulsing inside her as she strokes the back of his neck, pulling his head, heavy as a spent cannonball, to her shoulder. She wants to lie like this forever, tasting and taking and touching him, mouth against his sweaty hair. "Shh," she whispers, to what or to who she doesn't know, to all the demons, metaphorical and otherwise, that always lurk half-seen at their door. "Shh."

Lucifer keeps heaving for breath, hand coming up blindly to grasp hold of her breast again, a safe port in the storm, as the aftershocks of his own orgasm shudder through them. For a moment she's half in his head, and she's feeling her own body opening beneath her, pliant and wet and boneless and sweet, she's his cock and she's his hands and she's his mouth and she's everything else, and she's quite certain he likewise feels himself in him, that he is her as fully much. They're not two or even one. They are all.

"Chloe," he whispers, and somehow, after everything, that tastes the sweetest. He leans down to brush her lips with his thumb, and she takes it into her mouth, sucking. Licks at the webbing of his hand, bites it, until he very well could stare at her forever, her face, the dewdrops of sweat on her cheek, the faint freckles in the corner of her nose. There are a few things he will never forget, no matter if he lives until the end of time. He doesn't even need to wonder if this is one.

After a moment, he heaves out of her, rolling next to her and tucking her against him, into the shield of his body. His fingers splay on her stomach, browsing lower to touch her sensitive folds, as she moans at the pressure and can't resist a slight thrust against his hand. He traces a contemplative line up to her hip, circling it, face in her tangled hair, mouth against the faint white scar on the back of her neck. He hungers to know how she got it. _I have scars too,_ she said to him once, when she showed him that she didn't have the ones he feared she might. So she does, then. So she does.

They lie there for a bit, until they're rolling toward each other again, still not sated, still not had enough – angelic stamina does have its perks, among them recovery time – and Chloe licks very low on his stomach, holding him down when he tries to shift himself toward her mouth. She is just as willfully obstinate about getting where he wants her to go as he was earlier, which he supposes is a helpful scholastic proof of the concept of payback that really nobody needed. He is the bloody devil, he is perfectly damn well aware of how payback works. "Chloe – "

"Ask me," she whispers, mouth brushing over the top of his thigh. "Ask me for what you want."

She might be a shrinking violet when it comes to this. He's not. He smirks at her, as best as one can with absolutely no blood in one's head. "Suck my cock, darling."

Chloe arches an eyebrow. Waiting.

"Oh, fucking hell." He rolls his eyes at the ceiling. _"Please."_

She's definitely enjoying this far too much. She takes just the tip of him into her mouth, circling her tongue around it, as he's still sensitive from the last orgasm and jerks and moans more plaintively than he intended. Licks up the shaft, a slow deliberate stripe, then returns to suck him again, quick and deep and deliberate, one finger sliding across the curve of his arse and into the soft secret bit of him between cock and balls. Her touch is as light as her lips are insistent. Her other hand comes up, mapping a trail across his stomach and side, then back down again. She comes up on hands and knees, head diving up and down, until even he cannot possibly stand this an instant longer and, once more and beyond all measure, gives his soul to her. For whatever such an old, scarred, scabby, broken, bruised, raw, rent thing is even worth, she has it.

After a moment, Chloe wipes her mouth and slides slowly and sinuously up next to him, taking her time about touching him, their chins and chests and legs and arms and stomachs and ankles and knees and other knobby bits sliding and arranging against each other, her fingers brushing the back of his ear, cradling his head in her arm for a gentler kiss. He tastes salt and light on her lips. He keeps his eyes closed, until at last she whispers, "Look at me."

And – oh God, and he can't even hate himself for thinking it, can't stop himself, can't do anything else – dear God, he looks.

She is the most beautiful thing he has ever seen.

They settle down in the twisted, tangled sheets, and he straightens them out, tosses them over her. She rolls back into him, tucking herself into his chest, and he's not a cuddler, he doesn't tend to linger, he's lucky if he even remembers their name the next day – but he doesn't care, he doesn't want to let go. He gathers her against him and holds on for everything he is.

At last, and eventually, they sleep.

* * *

Chloe can't figure out what the hell is going on when she opens her sticky eyes. Why she feels as if she's been pounded to within an inch of her life, why she's as sore as if she's run miles, and why she feels so very – so very – there's really no other word for it – so _replete._

She drags her eyes open an inch further.

Oh fuck. She recognizes this bed.

Oh _fuck._

What the – oh Jesus (not that he has _anything_ helpful to offer here) – what the – it's morning, and she is naked, and so is he, and he's asleep with a smirk on his lips, and oh fucking, fucking _hell._

There is no denying it this time. No way to be in the least mistaken. She doesn't know what that red light did, exactly, but it did it far too well. And with that, she knows that her eternal fate is sealed.

She is _never_ going to hear the end of it.


End file.
